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Archives for October 2018

Maharashtra challenges Delhi HC order for Navlakha’s release

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The Maharashtra government on Wednesday moved the Supreme Court challenging a Delhi High Court order for the release of human rights activist Gautam Navlakha from house arrest.

The Maharashtra government contended that the High Court’s release order on Monday will preclude investigators from proceeding further in accordance with law.

The High Court had said his detention was “untenable.”

Navlakha and four other rights activists were arrested on August 28 by the Pune Police in various cities on the charges of having Maoist links and in connection with the Koregaon-Bhima violence in Maharashtra.

The Supreme Court last Friday refused to interfere in the arrest of the five activists and declined to set up an SIT, allowing the Pune police to go ahead with its probe in the Bhima-Koregaon case.

However, the house arrest of Sudha Bhardwaj, Varavara Rao, Gautam Navlakha, Vernon Gonsalves and Arun Ferreira will continue for four more weeks, the court had said in a 2:1 majority judgment.

The Pune police had claimed that it was in possession of “digital evidence about a larger conspiracy to mobilise cadres for action against security forces”. The Pune police had also alleged that the Maoists had plans to target Prime Minister Narendra Modi.

IANS

Digvijaya’s damage control after Mayawati’s Congress snub

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With Mayawati accusing him of “sabotaging” a BSP-Congress alliance, senior Congress leader Digvijaya Singh on Wednesday attempted to do damage control, saying he respected the BSP supremo and will be happy if such an alliance materialised.

“I respect her (Mayawati). We will be very happy if we have an alliance with the Bahujan Samaj Party. At the national level, I have always supported the idea that all parties opposed to the BJP-RSS ideology should come together to defeat them,” Singh told a TV channel.

Singh’s remarks came soon after Mayawati, in yet another blow to the Congress, ruled out any alliance with the Congress for the coming Rajasthan and Madhya Pradesh Assembly polls.

Calling him an agent of the RSS-BJP, Mayawati accused him of sabotaging a Congress-BSP alliance.

She also dismissed Digvijaya’s claims that she was under a “lot of pressure from the Centre because of which she does not want an alliance with the Congress”.

Asked if his statement on Mayawati triggered her latest snub, Singh said: “Nationally, central agencies have been let loose to suppress the voices of every political party or person who is not with the BJP or has criticised Prime Minister Narendra Modi or his government.”

Singh, a former Madhya Pradesh Chief Minister, also sought to deny Mayawati’s accusation of sabotage.

He pointed out that the former Uttar Pradesh Chief Minister had earlier made her intentions clear by announcing an electoral pact with Ajit Jogi’s Janta Congress for the Assembly polls in Chhattisgarh.

“When Mayawati addressed a press conference with Jogi (September 20), she categorically said that she will not align with the Congress and went ahead to declare her party’s alliance with Jogi and even announced that her party would contest 22 seats in Madhya Pradesh unilaterally,” he said.

IANS

Modi government trying for kisan-mukt Bharat: Congress

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Flaying the Centre for waiving corporate loans totalling 3.17 lakh crore instead of those of farmers, the Congress on Wednesday accused the Modi government of trying to create a “kisan-mukt Bharat”.

Condemning the Tuesday’s police crackdown on protesting farmers on the Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, the Congress questioned the government’s “indifference” towards the demands of farmers who have been protesting across the country.

“The Modi government has become a symbol of cruelty against farmers. It seems it is trying to build an India free of farmers and its slogan is ‘loot kisan and hit kisan,” said Congress Spokesperson Randeep Singh Surjewala here.

Citing a Reserve Bank of India report, he said that the government waived loans totalling Rs 3,17,000 crore of a handful of corporates between April 2014 and April 2018 but it has no time to pay heed to the long-standing demand for farm loan waiver.

Blaming the NDA regime for aggravation of the agrarian crisis in the country, the Congress questioned Modi and his government about fulfilling the 2014 promise, including that of cost plus 50 per cent profit to farmers.

“Since independence, no government has ever imposed a tax on agriculture. Then, why the Modi government has imposed Goods and Services Tax on tractors and agricultural implements, insecticides, and tractor tyres and spare parts?” it asked.

The party accused the government of breaking the backbone of farmers by steeply hiking
prices of diesel and fertilisers.

The Congress also alleged that the Prime Minister Crop Insurance Scheme has become a profit-reaping scheme for private insurance companies.

“In 2016-17 and 2017-18, the Modi government collected Rs 19,000 crore through agricultural cess. But the farmers under the Crop Insurance Scheme received a compensation of only Rs 5,650 crore whereas the companies made a profit of Rs 14,828 crore through premium,” Surjewala claimed.

IANS

Karnataka Minister’s Requested for five day work for state govt employes

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Karnataka Minister for Social Welfare Priyank Kharge has requested Karnataka Chief Minister HD Kumaraswamy to announce five-day work week for all the state government employees.
“It’ll be good if five days week can be considered, it will boost the work capacity of the state government employees,” Mr Kharge stated in the letter.

Mr Kharge added that he got the same demand from many of the state government employees.

Modi stresses on 4Ps for cleaner world

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Prime Minister Narendra Modi on Tuesday said that Swachh Bharat Mission has turned into the worlds biggest mass movement on sanitation and has given a mantra of 4Ps for a cleaner world.

“Political leadership, public funding, partnerships and people’s participation is the four mantras for making the world cleaner,” he said in his address at the closing session of the four-day Mahatma Gandhi International Sanitation Convention.

Referring to Gandhi’s remarks that he would give greater priority to cleanliness over independence, Modi said that he derived inspiration from the Mahatma and followed his guidelines while initiating the movement.

“Today, I am proud that our nation of 125 crore people is following in the footsteps of Gandhiji, and have turned Swacch Bharat Mission as the world’s biggest mass movement,” he said.

Asserting that the Swacch Bharat Mission has brought a behavioural change in the people, he said that rural sanitation has gone up to 94 per cent as against 38 per cent in 2014.

“Five lakh villages and 25 states have become Open Defecation Free,” he said.

IANS

Farmers’ protest politically motivated: Minister

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Union Minister of State for Agriculture Gajendra Singh Shekhawat on Tuesday said the Bharatiya Kisan Union (BKU)-led farmers’ protest was politically motivated.


“There is a reason behind it. Because this is an election year… For so many people there are different motives. That is the only reason. Otherwise, farmers across the country are very satisfied and thankful to the Modi government,” Shekhawat said.

He said the Modi government had announced assured Minimum Support Price (MSP) with 50 per cent of profit over the cost of production but the farmers were not concerned about the formula used while fixing MSP.

The protest by thousands of farmers at the Uttar Pradesh-Delhi border turned violent on Tuesday as they tried to break barricades and run them over with tractors to enter the national capital, forcing police to use water cannons and tear gas.

IANS

Iran: Conditions not ripe for US talks

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Iran will not sit for talks with the US over the existing issues as the conditions are not ripe, Iranian Foreign Minister Mohammad Javad Zarif said on Tuesday.

“I’m not ruling out the prospect of talks (with Washington) provided the necessary conditions for talks, and that is reliability,” Zarif was quoted as saying by Press TV.

“Reliability is that when you sign something you are bound by it. Otherwise, everything will fall apart,” he said, adding that “we are waiting for some sense of realism”.

Iranian authorities have stressed that Tehran will not sit for negotiations under Washington’s threats and sanction pressures.

Following US President Donald Trump’s decision to quit the historic Iranian nuclear pact, Washington vowed to reimpose sanctions lifted under the accord against Tehran and inflict punishments like secondary sanctions on nations having business links with Iran.

Washington’s withdrawal from the landmark Iran nuclear deal was criticized across the world. Some of its major European allies have been working to prevent the 2015 deal from falling apart.

The Trump administration, according to reports, has called for renegotiation of the Iranian 2015 nuclear deal as well as Tehran’s developing missile programme. However, Iran has ruled out possibility of talks over defence plans.

(IANS)

US begins denying visas to same-sex partners of diplomats

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US President Donald Trump’s administration has begun denying visas to unmarried, same-sex partners of foreign diplomats and UN employees, the media reported.

According to a report in Foreign Policy magazine on Monday, the policy affected same-sex partners of diplomats and staffers working at the UN global headquarters in New York. The partner must show proof of marriage by December 31 or leave the country within 30 days.

The majority of 193 UN member countries do not legalize same-sex marriage, meaning diplomats face a tough choice.

The report said the new policy meant at least 10 unmarried UN employees currently in the US will have to get married in order for their partners’ visas to be extended.

Since the 2015 Supreme Court decision legalizing same-sex marriage, the US policy has dictated that diplomatic visas are only extended to married spouses.

The US mission to the UN reportedly notified couples of the decision in July and it took effect on Monday, according to the report.

“Same-sex spouses of US diplomats now enjoy the same rights and benefits as opposite-sex spouses,” read the announcement obtained by Foreign Policy.

“Consistent with the (State) Department policy, partners accompanying members of permanent missions or seeking to join the same must generally be married in order to be eligible for a diplomatic visa,” it said.

Former US ambassador to the UN Samantha Power blasted the move as “needlessly cruel and bigoted”.

Alfonso Nam, the President of UN Globe, a UN LGBTI staff advocacy organization, told Foreign Policy that same-sex couples were at risk of prosecution if they return to a country that criminalizes homosexuality or has not legalized same-sex marriages.

Diplomats would be eligible for “limited exceptions” under the Trump administration’s policy if they can prove they are from countries that outlaw same-sex partners, the report said. That exception, however, reportedly does not extend to UN officials.

(IANS)

Cut use of chemicals, diversify crops: FAO chief

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Attaining sustainable development means shifting away from high-input and resource-intensive farming and food systems towards more sustainable practices, FAO Director-General Jose Graziano da Silva said.

“Today, it is fundamental to produce food in a way that preserves the environment and biodiversity,” Graziano da Silva said in an address at the biennial meeting of FAO’s Committee on Agriculture (COAG) on Monday.

Current farming practices have contributed to deforestation, water scarcity, soil depletion and high levels of greenhouse gas emissions, he told the meeting taking place in Rome from Monday through Friday.

“We have to implement sustainable practices that provide healthy and nutritious food, ecosystem services and climate-change resilience,” said da Silva.

To achieve this switch requires reducing the use of pesticides and chemicals, increasing crop diversification, and improving land conservation practices, among other measures, the FAO Director-General stressed.

He pointed to the inefficiency of current food systems in eradicating hunger, despite the fact that enough food was being produced to feed the entire global population, and underscored how hundreds of millions still do not have the income to buy the food they need or the means to produce it themselves.

“Changes are necessary to ensure that our ambition of nourishing people while nurturing the planet becomes a reality,” he added.

Many of the world’s more than 820 million chronically undernourished people are family farmers living in developing countries’ poor rural areas and who most need support to improve their livelihoods and build resilience, especially in relation to the impacts of conflicts and climate change, Graziano da Silva said.

“If we fail to create opportunities for poor rural people to thrive, especially women and youth, we will also fail to build a safer and more peaceful world,” he added.

Innovation, which is crucial for revitalizing rural areas and to make agriculture more attractive to young people, underpins these efforts, the Director-General said.

Da Silva noted how a lack of high quality and timely agricultural data was a key constraint on transforming the agriculture sectors and implementing the 2030 sustainable development Agenda and said extra funds were needed for data collection and other areas of FAO’s work to reach these goals.

Other discussions slated at this week’s meeting include a review of the implementation of FAO’s Climate Change Strategy the Global Framework on Water Scarcity in Agriculture and a proposal to scale up the Globally Important Agricultural Heritage Systems initiative, FAO stated.

IANS

US jails Chinese national over space tech smuggling scheme

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A Chinese national living in California has been jailed for 46 months over a scheme to smuggle sensitive space and military communications technology to China.

Si Chen, 33, was sentenced on Monday after she pleaded guilty in July to conspiracy to violate the International Emergency Economic Powers Act, which restricts the export of certain goods to foreign nations, the Justice Department said in a statement cited by CNN on Tuesday.

Si Chen, a resident of Pomona, a suburb of Los Angeles, was arrested in May 2017 and has been in custody since. She also pleaded guilty to money laundering and using a forged passport, the report said.

Prosecutors say that between 2013 and 2015, Si Chen purchased and smuggled numerous sensitive items to China without the proper export license, including components used in military communications jammers and devices used for space communications.

“This defendant knowingly participated in a plot to secretly send items with military applications to China. The smuggled items could be used in a number of damaging ways, including in equipment that could jam our satellite communications,” said US Attorney Nick Hanna in a statement.

The report said that Si Chen went by several aliases, including “Chunping Ji”, for which she acquired a forged passport and rented an office in Pomona to take delivery of the export-controlled items.

From Pomona, the goods were shipped to Hong Kong and then on to China. Court documents mentioned three unindicted co-conspirators who worked with Si Chen to smuggle the items to Hong Kong.

Her case came a week after another Chinese national, Ji Chaoqun, was arrested in the US over accusations of acting as an “illegal agent” at the direction of a “high-level intelligence officer” of a provincial department of the Ministry of State Security, China’s top spy agency.

IANS

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